Generally you should run screaming in the opposite direction when someone starts talking about her dissertation, but we promise this is a good one. French Orthodox theologian Elisabeth Behr-Sigel (1907–2005) knew pretty much every important Orthodox theologian of the 20th century, pioneered Russian hagiography, co-edited a journal, was active in the ecumenical movement, and supported the possibility of the ordination of women in the Orthodox church. Wait, what? Yes—but not until she was 75! And she kept at it until her death at the age of 98. We review her atypical support for women in ministry (atypical in many ways) and draw out some larger lessons for thinking about sex and gender in light of the Christian faith today.

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Notes:

1. Some useful background to this episode was already covered in our earlier episode on What Is a Person?

2. Among the books by Elisabeth Behr-Sigel, check out: The Ministry of Women in the Church, The Place of the Heart, Discerning the Signs of the Times, The Ordination of Women in the Orthodox Church (with Kallistos Ware), and Lev Gillet: A Monk of the Eastern Church.

3. Olga Lossky has written a wonderful biography of Behr-Sigel entitled Toward the Endless Day, which I reviewed here.

4. My book is entitled Woman, Women, and the Priesthood in the Trinitarian Theology of Elisabeth Behr-Sigel; there’s an interview with me about it here. I co-edited a collection of essays about Behr-Sigel entitled A Communion in Faith and Love, which includes Elisabeth Parmentier’s essay about Behr-Sigel’s education at the University of Strasbourg and one from me on “Behr-Sigel’s ‘New’ Hagiography and Its Ecumenical Potential.” I’ve more recently contributed to Women and Ordination in the Orthodox Church with the essay “Elisabeth Behr-Sigel’s Trinitarian Case for the Ordination of Women.” I created an archive of my collection of Behr-Sigel’s books and articles at the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Strasbourg, France.

5. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine (5 vols)

6. Among the other Orthodox theologians mentioned in this episode are Alexander Schmemann, Kallistos Ware, John Meyendorff, and John Behr.

7. Our friend Michael Plekon is the author of (among other things): Living Icons, Uncommon Prayer, Saints as They Really Are, The World as Sacrament, and Hidden Holiness

8. Paul Evdokimov’s main books on women are Woman and the Salvation of the World and The Sacrament of Love

9. See Dad’s essay “Whose Church? Which Ministry?” in Lutheran Forum 42/4 (Winter 2008): 48–53

10. For further detail on some of the topics discussed here, see my contribution to the Lutherjahrbuch 2017 and also the Lutheran Forum essays “The Epistle of Eutyche,” “The Face of Jesus, Part One” and “The Face of Jesus, Part Two,” and “Where Have All the Women Gone?”

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The party never stops at the Queen of the Sciences podcast! Coasting on the generally optimistic, cheerful, and devil-may-care attitude of a world gripped by pandemic and the various cultural and political responses to it, we break out our kazoos and streamers for the wrath of God. In this episode we talk about what it is, why it matters still to talk about it, and why (gasp) it may even be a good thing.

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Notes:

1. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America

2. The hymn I mentioned is “He Is Arisen, Glorious Word”

3. Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God

4. If you haven’t already listened to them, you'll find our episodes on Anselm and Kazoh Kitamori deal with some of these same issues. 

5. Lactantius, De Ira Dei

6. See in Dad’s Divine Complexity the subsection entitled, “Theology of Redemption,” chapter 6, pp. 212–222, and in Beloved Community the subsection entitled “God is the Eschaton of Judgment” in the Conclusion pp. 865–878, which take up these topics further

7. See also my final sermon on the Sermon on the Mount and essay “Peace, Peace, Where There Is No Peace” 

8. Oswald Bayer talks about God’s Umsturz in Martin Luther’s Theology: A Contemporary Interpretation, p. 215

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No, not a glam metal band, but a martyr of the second century and one of the first post-New Testament writers whose works survive. In the episode we take a look at the first heresies to erupt in Christianity—first analyzing just what counts as a "heresy" and why the concept remains a useful one—namely, Ebionitism and Docetism. Ignatius en route to Rome as a prisoner elucidates for us just why it matter so much that God really took flesh in Jesus Christ, and that his flesh was really crucified, and that his crucified flesh was really raised... just as Ignatius himself was really in chains and was really going to be devoured by the wild beasts.

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Notes:

1. You can read the seven extant letters of Ignatius here. Note that only the shorter version of each paragraph is authentic—the longer version is probably an expansion by later authors/editors.

2. Dad's Divine Complexity, ch. 2, discusses the formation of the New Testament canon in light of the martyrological witness, not least of all Ignatius's. If you've been interested in picking up one of Dad's books but don't know where to start (or are nervous about committing to 900 pages), start with this one—it'll give you a great overall read on the development of Christian theology and how it completely remade the way we think about God.

3. For a little taste of my learning about the nature of the church from being a missionary in Japan, take a look at this short piece, "Dispatch from a Bewildered Missionary in Japan."

4. Here's some info on the exchange between Pliny the Younger and Emperor Trajan about the wacky sect of Christians.

5. We talked more about martyrdom's "agency" in the face of suffering in the episode on Perpetua and Felicitas. See also the Martyrdom of Polycarp.

6. William R. Farmer and Denis M. Farkasfalvy, The Formation of the New Testament Canon

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The terrible killing of George Floyd and the resulting protests and riots around the country have prompted us to record this bonus episode, in which we reflect on our experiences and theological interpretations of being "white," American, and Christian.

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Notes:

1. Much of what we say in this episode presumes topics we've covered already; you may want to check out What Is a Person?, Faith to the Aid of Reason, Two Kingdoms: 16th-Century Edition & Two Kingdoms: 20th- and 21st-Century Edition, and The First Two-Thirds of Acts.

2. See Dad's Mission to the Catskills: A History of Immanuel Lutheran Church of Delhi, New York and his discussion of Martin Luther King Jr in Luther and the Beloved Community, informed by teaching a course on MLK for many years at Roanoke College.

3. A little info about my forthcoming memoir here

4. Review of Albion's Seed

5. This is a thoughtful reflection from a Christian in the South coming to terms with his ancestors and their history.

6. Bonhoeffer talks about the ultimate and penultimate in Ethics

7. Cornel West, Race Matters

8. James Cone, God of the Oppressed

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We bet you still have a hangover from the crucifixion episode with which we opened this season. Well, you had to wait longer than three days, but here it is at last: the counterpart episode on the resurrection. For we consider the sufferings of the crucifixion episode are not worth comparing to the glory that is this resurrection episode.

We cover a range of questions here, from what is even meant by resurrection (and just as importantly what is not) to what an event like this means in the stream of creaturely history to the ultimate question of what the resurrection of the crucified one means within the life of God.

Plus, some fun verbs.

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Notes:

1. Jesus Christ Superstar. I wouldn't go as far as to call it a "timeless" work as the advertising fluff on the homepage says—it's pretty obviously the product of its time—but still well worth the listen. Pilate gets to me every time.

2. Two essays by N. T. Wright addressing the meaning of "resurrection" and considerations for its historicity: "Christian Origins and the Resurrection of Jesus" and "Jesus' Resurrection and Christian Origins."

3. Bodily boundedness is discussed at greater length in our Leviticus episode

4. Pannenberg, Jesus: God and Man

5. My article on "The Verbs of the Resurrection"

6. Käsemann, Commentary on Romans

7. Theissen, The Miracle Stories of the Early Christian Tradition

8. For Dad vs. Bultmann, see: Divine Complexity ch. 2 for an extensive discussion of the resurrection and its metaphysical implications for God; Beloved Community on the difference between demythologization and deliteralization (easiest thing here is just to look at the index for all listings); the forthcoming Joshua commentary from Brazos, which will also deal extensively with this topic; and finally "The Theology of the Martyrs," in Martyrdom and the Suffering of the Righteous, 87–110.

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Following on our last episode about eucharistic discipline, in this one we actually dig into the doctrine, discussing what and who it is in, with, and under the Lord's Supper and what it even means to talk about Christ's presence therein. Lots of fun terminology (see below). Then some liturgical advisories on bread vs. wafers, I momentarily lose it over how people approach their shot glasses, and we (perhaps a bit disappointingly) argue less about the eucharistic prayer than either of us anticipated.

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Notes:

1. Luther's writings referred to in this episode are: The Small Catechism, Confession Concerning Christ's Supper, the Jonah commentary, and (obliquely) the Babylonian Captivity of the Church.

2. Some of us because theologians because we're enchanted by the vocabulary. Here are some good ones that were or weren't mentioned in this episode pertaining to the Lord's Supper that you can have fun googling: alleosis, capernaitism, epiclesis, ubivolipraesens, transubstantiation, consubstantiation (just so long as you promise not to use it to describe the Lutheran doctrine of the the Lord's Supper), and extracalvinisticum (N.B. I first fell in love with my husband because of a prank involving the extracalvinisticum, so, you know, there's more than one reason to master theological vocabulary).

3. I talk more about gospel imperatives in this bonus episode, and reflect on unusual sacramental circumstances in "The Sacraments in Time, Space, and Matter."

4. Dad discusses the Lord's Supper in detail in Beloved Community, pp. 476–509.

5. Sacramentine sisters

6. For a good survey of early church practice and Reformation response on the eucharistic prayer and the words of institution, see Dorothea Wendebourg, "Traveled the Full Extent of Rome's Erroneous Path?" Lutheran Forum 44/4 (2010): 18–33.

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We put the cart ahead of the horse in this one: after a good start in I Corinthians, we gallop off into matters of eucharistic discipline, but not to worry, we decide to keep going in the next episode, in which we'll back up and deal with the doctrine. In the meanwhile, if you get really exercised about questions of who's in and who's out, you're either going to love this episode... or unsubscribe. Either way, enjoy!

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Notes:

1. Dennis Di Mauro, "For You, For Many, For All People?" Lutheran Forum 50/4 (2016): 20–23.

2. We never did get around to infant communion, but here's an article I wrote on the topic called "Mildly Opposed to Infant Communion." A bit off topic but related to something that came up in this episode, I critique C. S. Lewis's doctrine of purgatory in "A Lutheran Reflection on C. S. Lewis."

3. For a study of early liturgical history that doesn't annoy me, see Paul F. Bradshaw and Maxwell E. Johnson's The Origin of Feasts, Fasts, and Seasons in Early Christianity

4. The Vatican II statement on ecumenism is Unitatis Redintegratio; see especially section 3 on "Churches and Ecclesial Communities Separated from the Roman Apostolic See."

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Christianity has had a 1900+ year bad history with (rabbinic) Judaism, with devastating consequences for the lives of Jews and theological bankruptcy for Christians. We hone in on the problem within our own tradition by looking at Luther's contorted and confusing attitude to Jews—from being the first person in about 1000 years to propose toleration and speak well of them, to his famously horrific suggestions to drive them out, steal their books, and burn their synagogues. Yet Luther proves to be not unique but representative in his anti-Judaism, so we also address wider concerns such as the not-always-tenable difference between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, and to what extent the roots of Christian anti-Judaism lie in our Scripture, Old and New Testament alike. Romans chs. 9–11 guide us through this mare's nest of issues.

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Notes:

1. David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition

2. The chief texts of Luther relevant to his Janus-like relationship with the Jews are: “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew” (1523; Luther’s Works vol. 45), “Against the Sabbatarians” (1539; Luther’s Works vol. 47), and “On the Jews and Their Lies” (1543; Luther’s Works vol. 47)

3. The book that popularly made the case in America for the direct lineage between Hitler and Luther was William L. Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Uwe Siemon-Netto wrote a rebuttal to this claim in his The Fabricated Luther: Refuting Nazi Connections and Other Modern Myths.

4. My choice for the best place to examine this issue is in Thomas Kaufmann’s Luther’s Jews: A Journey into Anti-Semitism. Here's a review I wrote of it.

5. See Dad’s review of the excellent book by Peter Ochs, Another Reformation: Postliberal Christianity and the Jews in The Journal of Scriptural Reasoning 13/2 (2014) and in his book Beloved Community the “Excursus: on Jewish perplexity as a principle internal to Christology” on pp. 416–428. Also, check out his book Before Auschwitz, which analyzes various Christian theological positions regarding Jews and Judaism and how they were able to resist Nazi ideology or, conversely, fell right in step with it.

6. A few things I’ve written dealing with these issues: “Still Reckoning with Luther” in The Christian Century; commentary on Mark 12:28–34 for Working Preacher; my chapter “Tradition: A Lutheran Perspective” in the collection The Idea of Tradition in the Late Modern World; and a chapter in my ebook Luther, Thrice, available by signing up for the Theology & a Recipe newsletter on my website.

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Following hot on the heels of our last episode about St. Paul among the Philosophers, in this episode we take up his magnum opus, the Epistle to the Romans. Positioned first in the New Testament, it is actually the last extant letter he wrote. Hugely influential, it is densely packed, tightly argued, and generally impenetrable to a casual reading. So with the excellent aid of the brilliant interpreter Ernst Käsemann we walk through most of Romans (leaving chs. 9–11 for next time) to discover the power of the gospel, the ungodliness of the godly, and God's justification of precisely those ungodly people by His Son and Spirit.

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Notes:

1. Käsemann, Commentary on Romans

2. Melanchthon, Loci Communes

3. Paulson, Lutheran Theology

4. J. L. Austin, How to Do Things with Words

5. Dad talks about baptism extensively in Beloved Community

6. Epp, Junia: The First Woman Apostle; I wrote a review of it for the late great Books & Culture

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